This is Water by David Foster Wallace is about simple awareness. His commencement speech talks about the things the students should know about the real world. His main three arguments were as follows, students haven’t experienced what day in and day out really are. “But (experiencing day in, day out) hasn’t yet been part of you graduates’ actual life routine, day after week after month after year.” Another point he made was that the exact same experience can mean two totally different things to two different people. “Given those people’s two different belief templates and two different ways of constructing meaning from experience.” His third point was that you have to look at the bigger picture and that the people around you may have harder, more tedious, and painful lives than you do, and being aware of that was his main argument of his. 

I agree with Wallace when he brought up that it’s really important to consider other people, and what may be going on in their lives. Not to look at it as if you are the center of attention, and if you are in a bad mood, to not act like everyone else is just in your way. I completely agreed with that. Like what if the other person is having an even worse day? A lot of things should be taken into consideration, and people should be more aware of that even when they’re doing something as simple as grocery shopping Wallace explained. 

I don’t think he directly refers to empathy but I believe that you can draw connections from his speech that relate to empathy. For example, “…that some of these people probably have harder, more tedious and painful lives than I do.” I think you could connect this, as some people need to be empathized with when you aren’t even aware of it. When someone else has their energy all bottled up on the inside, and they’re looking for that person to lean on, but they may not have that. You could connect this by saying that even though you aren’t originally aware that this person is having a bad day, you could bring up a conversation with this individual and that may be your way of showing empathy while making his or her day a little bit better. 

When Wallace says that “the exact same experience can mean two totally different things to two different people.” This immediately sparked something in my brain. I agree with this wholeheartedly and I think it’s a solid point that people don’t generally think about. Everyone can have their own opinions and own reactions to a situation. It’s important to consider that they may have different beliefs, and different ways of thinking, or that they may just be different from you, which can lead to their reaction not being the same as yours. This got me thinking about how I can connect this to Mr. Bloom and I think it relates really well to his points on empathy, but overall once Wallace said this sentence, I immediately agreed with him.